The dismembered collection of antiquities of Lowther Castle

From 1842 until his death in 1872, Sir William Lowther, 2nd Earl of Lonsdale, gathered a remarkable collection of ancient works of art. The collection was displayed in two galleries added to his manor for this purpose in 1866. Of the great assemblage, acquired through the dismemberment of previous British collections, little information has come down to our day. It was composed of more than 100 pieces of Egyptian, Etruscan, Greek, and mostly Roman sculpture, whose selection reflected the spirit of the collections of the 'Golden Age of Dilettantism' during the Victorian era. The collection, unusually for the time, also included a selection of Romano-British antiquities. The purpose of this paper is to give an overview of the formation and the dispersal of the collection and to clarify the cultural factors that determined the gathering of this eclectic assemblage of ancient objects.